Stuck inside a hall of mirrors: facets of mum guilt on the SCBU | Article

for neonatal and paediatric healthcare professionals

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Keywords

very preterm; prematurity; neonatal; parent voice; family-integrated care (FiCare); NICU

Key points

Mothers of ‘healthy’ premature babies have very different psychosocial needs to mothers of poorly or critically ill babies.
There are many different facets of guilt that a mother on the NICU can experience.
Guilt can underpin a conflict of identity in mothers – the ‘theoretical mum’.
Good FiCare can enable mothers to identify and work through their feelings of guilt, supporting them to become ‘really mum’.

Also published in Infant:

VOLUME 18 ISSUE 1/JANUARY 2022

Nursing management of neonates undergoing screening for retinopathy of prematurity

Eye examinations can be unpleasant for newborn infants and sometimes they may cry or show signs of discomfort. Neonatal nurses can make this experience less distressing for the baby and its parents by careful preparation and evidence-based best practice. This article describes an audit of current practice and a quality improvement project that set out to standardise the nursing care given to infants undergoing retinopathy of prematurity screening, including the development of a unit protocol to promote a care bundle.